What was I thinking?!?!
I received an email about the Cross Florida event coming in April 2019. I had been eyeing this ride for a few years. I remember the first time I had seen it and thought it looked like a fun thing to do. When I read the email I thought, “April 2019 is a long way away. I have time to train. I think I want to do this.” I contacted Tracy Draper to get her perspective. Knowing she had done this in the past, and probably had insights about the difficulty in a ride like this for a newbie, this seemed like a good first step. She let me know I had plenty of time to get ready. I asked her if she would work with me to develop a training program. I wanted to be ready to do this ride successfully. She was available and happy to work with me again. So I signed up.
Tracy and I would talk once a week. Every 2 weeks she’d give me a new 2-week program. I had limited time to train, so she worked this in for me. I could do longer rides on the weekend. During the week I had only about an hour to ride any given day, and usually inside on a low-end trainer. No problem, she said. That was workable.
In my first month, I worked on building my base. But riding wasn’t the only part of my training. I also had strength training and stretching each week. Doable. I kept to the schedule Tracy developed for me. Each week I also reported how my body was responding and feeling with the training. Along the way, I did get sick a few times. We adjusted my training program to take this into account. Sometimes I was really, really, really tired. We adjusted to that too. After all, life happens. Our bodies respond to so many things in different ways. By adjusting my training, I was able to avoid burning out.
Each month my training changed and became more challenging. Tracy’s help with a program gave me the ability to just focus on doing the training so I didn’t have to also figure out what to do. Her expertise was exactly what I needed. She offers different types of coaching, and this was exactly what I needed – an expert to guide me and make the best use of my time so I had the stamina and confidence to tackle this challenge.
More than a few times I thought, “What was I thinking?”. 170 miles in 2 days is a long way to go. On weekends when I started the back to back training rides that got longer, fighting the wind by myself, I wondered if I had made a mistake. But I kept on.
Some things I learned in my training program were interval training, over-under training, and sweet spot training. These new techniques allowed me to get the most out of my limited training time. I was ready for this!
Ciao,
Diana | TeamOne
